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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

If you don't trust the installer (I would, but then I have used it quite a few times). You can get a rough log of the files it places down by running a find command before and after the install and diffing the results as follows:

In addition to the files listed in VirtualBox-4.1.18-78361_install.log. The install script will also add some commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local and (I think, though perhaps I added them myself) /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown, so have a look at these files before and after install.

For a more comprehensive tracking solution:

Code:

$ man slacktrack

Last edited by ruario; 07-11-2012 at 09:05 AM.
Reason: Improved the example

Okay, so are there any other things to be careful about before installing Virtualbox? I mean, some dependencies or guest additions? Could you help me with the Wine too? Sorry for bombarding but am new at this all. But, am loving it!

If you did a full Slackware install it should just work. If not you should get an error, which will give you clues anyway. The guest additions are for the guest OSes running underneath it, not the host (your PC) that is running VirtualBox itself.

I don't use Wine but I believe most people who are using it here, just use the Wine SlackBuild after first making there system multilib (which you have already done).

If you did a full Slackware install it should just work. If not you should get an error, which will give you clues anyway. The guest additions are for the guest OSes running underneath it, not the host (your PC) that is running VirtualBox itself.

I don't use Wine but I believe most people who are using it here, just use the Wine SlackBuild after first making there system multilib (which you have already done).

When you start VirtualBox (without starting a virtual machine), click File, Preferences, Extensions and add the Extension Pack you downloaded (the current version is Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.18-78361.vbox-extpack). Do not install an Extension Pack with a different version number.

Included in the installation of VirtualBox are Guest Additions; you will want to add those to any virtual machine you install. If you're installing the Guest Additions in a Windows virtual machine, you do that after Windows is installed (and you've gotten the 200+ Critical Updates downloaded, of course) -- boot Windows in Safe Mode then install the Guest Additions. This is documented in the UserManal.pdf that you'll find in /opt/VirtualBox.

If you don't trust the installer (I would, but then I have used it quite a few times). You can get a rough log of the files it places down by running a find command before and after the install and diffing the results as follows:

In addition to the files listed in VirtualBox-4.1.18-78361_install.log, the install script will also add some commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local and (I think, though perhaps I added them myself) /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown, so have a look at these files before and after install.

If you go down this route, after making VirtualBox-4.1.18-78361_install.log manually check that it only has VirtualBox files (if you installed anything else in the background or made configuration changes in /etc, these might be listed). Once you are satisfied that they are VBox only files keep this log around as it means that should you ever want to kill VirtualBox, instead of /opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh you could simply do the following:

Code:

# cat VirtualBox-4.1.18-78361_install.log | xargs -d'\n' -n1 rm -v

Note: The changes to /etc/rc.d/rc.local would remain but the commands in them check for the precence of an installed VirtualBox before they attempt to run anything, so they are fairly harmless. Additionally, that command would leave behind some empty directories created by the VirtualBox install script. I intentionally left directories out of the find command because it simplifies the result and because empty directories don't really affect anything. Though if empty directories really bother you, they are fairly trivial to locate with a find command, e.g.:

Another nice thing about creating install logs like this for VirtualBox is that you can make a binary backup package of the software. This is handy for quick reinstall (no compiling kernel modules), or for install on another similar architecture and version Slackware machine, even if the other machine does not have the kernel-source package installed (though you'd need to update /etc/rc.d/rc.local manually). This can be done as follows:

You can actually use simple tricks like this with almost any other software you wish to track, e.g. source installs where you are too lazy to make a SlackBuild.

That all said, it would be remiss of me not to mention that slacktrack, src2pkg, paco, etc. are better and more comprehensive solutions. What I like about doing things the way I outline above is the simplicity. No extra tools are required and the same kinds of tricks will work across distros.

Edit: If anyone is curious, on my own machine I make a directory ('/var/log/footprints/') where I keep logs for software that I am tracking in this way. For example on the machine I am using now that directory contains:

P.S. [Even further off-topic]Compiling heirloom-pax the way I want is slightly messy. I'm half-way to a proper build script. I really should find the time to convert it to a SlackBuild and submit it to SBo. There is already one pax on SBo but this one has a lot of nice options not found in the more common pax implementations, such as being about to read and write the following cpio formats: newc, crc, sco, scocrc, odc, bin, bbs, sgi, cray, cray5 and dec, in addition to tar, otar, ustar, pax, suntar, gnutar, bar and even zip!

Last edited by ruario; 07-11-2012 at 10:20 AM.
Reason: added an example from my own system

Actually a quick test showed me that /opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh leaves behind a directory (/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/vboxapi) with 156.8KiB of files in it. Not much but I should probably report it upstream.